US Condemns UN Expert for 9/11 Statements

A UN expert on Palestinian human rights who suggested there was a cover-up
over the September 11 attacks should be fired, US Ambassador to the United Nations
Susan Rice said on Tuesday.

US academic Richard Falk wrote in a blog this month that there had been an
“apparent cover-up” by US authorities over the September 11, 2001
attacks, in which hijackers flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New
York and the Pentagon near Washington, killing more than 3,000 people.

“In my view, Mr. Falk’s latest commentary is so noxious that it
should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position
on behalf of the UN,” Rice said in a statement.

“I would note that US and many other diplomats walked out in protest
in September 2010 when Iranian President Ahmadinejad made similarly slanderous
remarks before the U.N. General Assembly,” she said, adding that Falk’s
comments were “despicable and deeply offensive.”

Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on human rights
in the Palestinian territories, wrote in his blog that mainstream media had
refused to accept “well-evidenced doubts about the official version of
the events: an al Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials.”

In a letter to Ban last Thursday, UN Watch, a Geneva-based advocacy group affiliated
with the American Jewish Committee, called on the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
to “strongly condemn Mr. Falk’s offensive remarks — and …
immediately remove him from his post.”

UN Watch frequently criticizes the human rights council, saying it often berates
Israel while ignoring rights violations by developing countries. It has targeted
Falk in the past.

Ban’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar said on Monday that the secretary-general
condemned the remarks but said it was not up to Ban to fire Falk, since he was
appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, a 47-nation body created
by the UN General Assembly in 2006.